[SYSK] Some guys aggregate public Facebook status updates, and why it’s a good thing
May 14th, 2010 by Dave StudinskiFacebook continues to find itself in a a shitstorm regarding privacy issues.
The collective Interwebz demands answers, changes and – ultimately – alternatives. For once, it’s not using Facebook to do it.
FB HQ held a reported all-staff meeting Thursday, but no one is talking about it. Mere hours prior, four NYU computer science nerds confirmed more than $100,000 in backing for an open, privacy-focused Facebook alternative. As of writing, they’re more than $134k in the honey for the project, named “Diaspora.”
Another code project, trending viral this morning, highlights the number of Facebook users exposing status updates to the world. FacebookSearch aggregates that data in fun (?), easy to use and admittedly creepy search of said updates.
Recommendations from the site include “playing hooky,” “rectal exam” and “stupid boss.” I also suggest “out of jail.”
As the creators note on their about page, there’s a growing discussion about the ethical and moral nature of such a search. The debate: The data – the updates – is already public, but the aggregation and subsequent access to the aggregated data is new. Some discussion contributors criticize the creators for not creating a proactive solution the problem, and instead creating a toy.
For the normal Facebook user, however, awareness of a problem is half the battle.
[via TechCrunch, props to Matt for the find]
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